JOSEPH LISOWSKI has taught at several colleges and universities, most notably, Duquesne University, Point Park College, The University of the Virgin Islands (St. Thomas serves as the setting for his 3 published detective fiction novels), J.Sargeant Reynolds Community College, Elizabeth City State University, and at the Virginia State Penitentiary.  Among his many awards and grants, he received the UNC Board of Governors Teacher of the Year award (2013-2014). Poems published in 2016 in the following:  Verse-Virtual, Riverbabble, and Fox Adoption Magazine.

THE NIGHT AFTER MY FATHER DIED

Jesus sits
In the darkness
Of my living room
In contemplation
Within a large framed
Painting of Gethsemane
The only light dull,
Flickering shadows
From outside. Inside  no sound
But my mother
Keening upstairs.

I feel alone in
Sorrow
Lost.

I reach for a bottle–
Lacrima Christi
Sanguina Christi
Aware of the irony

And drink a measure of tears.

INHERITANCE

Easy blood
Flows through
Family

Wounds
Like streams
In genes

Dammed
By misdeeds.
Old sins

Unrepented
Unshriven
Is what we’re given.

IT’S EASY TO FORGET

Roads
Like rivers
Can flood,

Lead anywhere
Not intended.
Bad luck,

Black ice
Night
These  years

Slip
We  slip
Away.

Who can remember
How we once were

Now that
We still suffer
So?